Grief
by JustJasper
Summary: A small series of vignettes set during 6x18 'Lauren'. Canon-compliant, gen. 1: Hotch with Jack. 2: Rossi & Seaver. 3: JJ & Garcia. Please R&R!
1. Chapter 1

_**SPOILER ALERT for 6x18 'Lauren'. A small series of vignettes set during 'Lauren', in the hours after the hospital scene. I know everyone and their mothers are doing this, but hopefully this will be unique enough for your R&Rs!**_

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"**While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die." – Leonardo da Vinci**

There is still so much that Jack Hotchner cannot yet comprehend; why the ocean rolls back and forth, why he's never been taken to a theme park with dinosaurs, how shoelaces work, why real life doesn't have background music all the time, or what exactly fishsticks are made of. But one thing he does know, at six years old, is that when his daddy comes home from work and the first thing he does his hug him, sometimes without even dropping his briefcase, he is feeling sad.

That is what happens today, as Jack waits by the door listening to his daddy's car pulling up. He's got a clay mug in hand that he made in school and stayed in at lunchtime to paint, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he prepares to show it to his father. He knows his daddy is sad as soon as he walks through the door, because he's already smiling. Normally his daddy doesn't smile until he becomes at-home-dad, after he's put his briefcase down, taken off his jacket and tie. When he comes in smiling Jack doesn't know it's because he prepares it deliberately in the few seconds it takes to unlock the door, he just knows that it means something.

Jack shifts his hold on his blue and red painted mug to one hand, letting his arms go loose at his side as his daddy comes towards him, scooping him up into his arms. He puts his own around his father's neck, and doesn't complain when he presses his face to his shoulder and squeezes a little too tight. He knows hugging makes things better, and he doesn't want his daddy to be sad.

Aaron cradles the back of his son's head, his eyes pressed closed as he slowly fights the bitter creep of emotion at the back of his throat. There are no words to the boy's aunt who had been looking after him; she knows what has happened, and she puts a hand briefly on the man's arm, giving him a sad look of sympathy. Hotch nods. She leaves.

Finally pulling away, he sits Jack on the edge of the kitchen counter, smiling down at him and smoothing the boy's hair back gently with both hands.

"Did you catch the bad guy today, daddy?" he asks sadly, and his father knows his son can sense that he isn't okay. He knows his son expects the answer he gives.

"No, Jack." He says softly. "Not today."

"You can't catch them every time." Jack says, and Hotch is a little surprised by this; kids are meant to have a view of their superheroes as never failing. But he considers even in his son's comics, the villains sometimes get away, to be chased another time. All the same, he feels somehow he's letting Jack down admitting it, until the boy speaks again. "But you'll get them in the end."

It's childish innocence, and Hotch has no illusions that so many of the 'bad guys' will get away, but his son's faith makes him feel soothed. He puts a kiss against his son's head, and then rests his own forehead against him.

"Do you remember Emily?" He said gently as he straightens. "The lady I work with? With bangs?" he touches his own forehead, and Jack understands and nods. "She died today." He watched as subtly Jack's bottom lip protrudes a little.

"Like mommy?"

"Yes." Aaron lies. He has to tell his son, because he wants to give him some understanding of things outside of the routine that will happen because of it. He has to prepare his son for when he watches him prepare that same black suit as he wore for Haley's funeral.

At the same times it feels cruel to tell him, to remind him of his mother. Even more so there is a tangible worry in Hotch's mind that one day, maybe, he'll have to tell Jack that Emily Prentiss isn't dead, and that it was pretend. The thought that Jack might run with this idea and start to believe that is what happened with his own mother threatens to make him cry right there in front of his son.

"I made this for you." Jack says, because it makes sense to hold the mug out and show him to stop his face turning sad again. His daddy takes it from his hands and looks at it.

"Wow, Jack, you made this?" his dad says, sounding impressed. Jack smiles proudly and nods.

"That's your badge." He said, pointing it out on the mug because his dad doesn't paint and he might not know about it.

"I see." He's smiling properly now, nodding a little. "And is this a sword?"

"No," Jack giggles, knowing he's right; he daddy doesn't know anything about painting, "it's your tie."

"Oh right. Yeah, I see." He said.

Hotch turns the mug around in his hands, feeling the glazed paint and pottery slide over his palm. On the opposite side to his somewhat abstract portraiture are the painted words 'coffee for my best dad'. He cracks and a grin that creases the corners of his eyes, knowing it's a little misshapen and bumpy, but it was crafted with so much love he can practically feel it permeating the clay, and on the handle there are several of Jack's small fingerprints preserved. It is perfect.

"Can I take it to work with me, Jack?" he asks. "I'll put it on my desk. Maybe I could use it for pens?" Jack looks unimpressed.

"If it was for pens it would say so." He says, making a face that is mockingly impatient and tapping the mug with his finger. "It's for coffee, daddy."

"You're right." Aaron agrees. "Can I take it to work with me if I promise to drink coffee from it?"

"Okay." Jack nods.

"Thanks." He kisses his son's head again. "Did you have dinner already?"

"Yeah."

"You want to help daddy cook his dinner anyway?"

"Okay!" Jack holds out his arms so his dad can grab him under the armpit and lift him off the counter with a flourish. He's smiling now, his father's calm spreading through the kitchen.

Hotch goes to the fridge and is silently thankful that his son doesn't have to know it is a calm with currents of regret and sadness below the stillness. He thanks no power in particular that at least for a few hours, his son can distract his mind from the swirling river that is the technical death of Emily Prentiss.

"**There are so many little dyings that it doesn't matter which of them is death." - Kenneth Patchen**


	2. Chapter 2

"**In any man who dies there dies with him, his first snow and kiss and fight. Not people die but worlds die in them." - ****Yevgeny Yevtushenko**

They are quiet in the back of their shared taxi, and have been since leaving the hospital. Ashley feels miserable, but doesn't dare to let herself cry, even if it's only in front of Rossi. She can feel the tears itching at her big round eyes, but knows she hasn't earned the right to shed them. She has – had – only known Emily Prentiss for a couple of months. She doesn't know her like the rest of the team, a fact Rossi relied on to help them work out the details when they were trying to find her. She knows those degrees of separation make it much easier for her to deal wither death than the rest of the team, but it doesn't feel like it. She has nothing to compare it to; she has never lost a close friend, never lost a family member prematurely. She knows all pain and hurt concerning her father isn't quantifiable against this; the two are not the same.

She takes a long breath inwards, and wonders if Rossi notices the way it shudders, because he catches her eye and offers her his arm; she gladly slips under it, curling up against the older man's side. He wraps his hand around her arm and gives her a reassuring squeeze, letting her lean her head against his shoulder.

David has lost friends and colleges over the years; he's no longer a young man, and the work he does makes it a risk. Somehow this time is different; it doesn't feel like things will ever be okay again. He silently wonders if he felt like that each time he lost someone, convinced himself it would hurt forever, only for it to get easier. He hopes the pain passes at the same moment he hopes it never stops; they deserve to heal eventually, but she deserves to be remembered.

"Do you want to order a pizza?" she asks. "I've got a new shooter we could play."

He knows she's asking him to stay because she doesn't want to be alone. He's not sure he does either; later he will sit in the dark with a cigar and a scotch and drink to the memory of Emily Prentiss, but right now Seaver needs him. He isn't sure if it's paternal or platonic feeling that drives his answer.

"Sure, Ashley."

They both get out of the taxi at her building, and he lets her lead the way to her apartment. He's been here before a couple of times briefly, but usually they socialise somewhere neutral. She lets him phone for pizza as she goes to fetch beer from the fridge, changing out of her shoes and retying her hair so it's pulled back loosely as she goes.

He smiles at her from the sofa and takes the beer she offers, and watches as she switches the TV on and picks up the console controllers. One tumbles from her hand and clatters over the floor, and with a small sigh she reaches for it. When she joins him on the sofa he puts a reassuring hand on hers before he takes one of the controllers.

"Are you okay, Ashley?"

"Yeah." She says, not sure if it's truth or not.

"You did well." He says; she isn't looking at him, she's watching the game loading screen. "On the case. I'm really proud of you."

"But you were right," Ashley says in a small voice, "I did feel weird about Doyle having a kid. It did bother me. And I didn't say anything until you pushed me. If I'd said something earlier..."

"Ashley, this isn't your fault." Rossi says, tone soothing. "The only person to blame is Doyle."

Finally she looks at him again, big blue eyes expressive enough to betray her feelings. Rossi gives her a sad smile.

"But-"

"Everyone is going to find something they can blame themselves for." David says slowly. "Right now every single one of our team is probably beating themselves up like you think you should be doing over something they should have done, shouldn't have done, should have done sooner. But it's not going to help."

She feels the tear creep out of her eye and wipes at it hastily with the heel of her hand, feeling ashamed that her resolve has broken. If there's anyone she trusts in this world to see her cry it's Rossi, but she still doesn't want to be weak in front of him.

David can see the conflict etching over her face, and he knows she's trying her hardest not to show weakness. She's stronger than she looks, especially emotionally; all things considered, she's had to be. He smiles again and lifts his controller a little bit, indicating his complicity in helping them both distract themselves. She offers him her best smile and they begin to play, Seaver chooses a co-operative mode as best for this moment.

He realises how much better it is to be here with her than it is to be alone with his thoughts; he knows a time for processing will come, and it will probably start tonight and he won't be able to sleep, but this small joy has to be kept alive to get him – them – through. He hopes the rest of his team is finding their something to hold onto in the wake of their loss, hopes with everything he has they can mourn, but also heal.

Being shot at by virtual alien invaders isn't conducive to thinking very deeply, and he's grateful for it. Ashley's player takes a headshot while trying to pull off a tricky shot around a corner and she makes a frustrated sound, which turns into a laugh as David nudges her teasingly with his elbow. She gets a turn to laugh not longer later, when he runs right into the path of a rocket launcher and his player is throwing into the air. It occurs to him as his character respawns that they are laughing at the very thing they are avoiding; they are laughing at death to keep its reach at bay.

"**From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity." - Edvard Munch**


	3. Chapter 3

"**People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura of life which bears no relation to true immortality but through which they continue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive. It is as though they were travelling abroad." - Marcel Proust**

JJ hasn't even got her coat off when Penelope is sobbing again. They stronger sobs than in the hospital or the car, and it's evident she has holding back before, because now she can barely hold herself up. JJ watches as her friend stumbles over to the sofa and collapses onto it, dropping her head into her hands with a poorly-disguised wail.

A part of JJ's mind wants desperately to go home and be with her partner and child, but a currently stronger part can't bear the thought of doing so, because she knows when she does she's going to have to lie to Will like she's lying to her friends. She doesn't have a choice; she has to lie to protect them. Doyle isn't dead, and Emily needs to be.

JJ crosses the room and sits down next to Penelope. She can feel her own tears prickling at her eyes, and she doesn't attempt to stop them. she puts a hand gently on Garcia's back and the woman pulls herself up, wipes at her eye with the heel of her hand and smudges her makeup.

"I'm sorry, Jayje." She sniffles.

"It's okay." JJ hushes, keeping her gaze still so Garcia can meet it. "Do you want me to make us some tea, or something?"

"I guess." Garcia says through a hitched breath, tears still rolling down her cheeks. She reaches for a tissue as JJ gets up and moved to the kitchen.

Her hands fumble as she reaches for tea bags and she takes a moment to draw in a long breath. The hurt isn't entirely genuine for her, because she knows the truth, and that feels like a offense to the memory of the people she's lost. Her sister's face comes to mind; her hurt then had been real, every sobbing, shaking fibre of her body singing with grief. The way some of the feelings now are similar to that feels like a betrayal, a bastardisation of that pure pain she had experiences when her sister committed suicide.

As she pours the boiling water into the tea pot she's shaking and a little pours over her hand, hot enough to hurt but not quite enough to scald. She grits her teeth but keeps silent; she doesn't move her hand away and she embraces the physical pain, as if she deserves it to hurt for what she's had to do.

Grief isn't new to Penelope, either. When people look at her they see a bubbly, talkative, cheerful techie; which isn't a falsehood, but the knowledge that she has been touched by grief is never at the forefront of their minds. She lost both of her parents when she was eighteen; she had been orphaned.

As JJ makes tea in the kitchen Garcia remembers the moment she found out; she was at Caltech, and she got a phone call. A phone call was an entirely inadequate and inappropriate way to find out you had lost both parents. She had broken down on the floor by the phone, sobbing until her roommate found her.

This isn't unlike that time; the tears, the utter despair that works its way through her. In fact it's exactly the same; she has lost someone who is family, someone she loves more than any computer or operating system there could ever be. It's even the same situation, that she has other family still alive but she can't do anything to slow their grief; she feels useless.

"Here." JJ says gently, distracting Garcia from herself.

"Thanks." She takes her mug of tea, appreciates the warm ceramic against her hands.

"You know," she says, sniffing back further tears, "even when Emily was AWOL, when you came back I was thinking it would go back to how it used to be."

JJ smiles sadly over her own mug, and leans back on the sofa.

"I was even thinking about us going to drinks like we used to." She gives a bitter laugh that is so unlike her. "How stupid is that, Jayje? Emily was fighting for her life, and I was thinking about us out on the town."

"Pen, that's... good." JJ says gently. "Emily wouldn't of faulted you for that. That's so you."

"Isn't it naive, though?" Garcia asked. "That I could think after something like that... Doyle.. she'd be okay, even if he hadn't _murdered_ her?"

"Pen..." JJ sooths, quickly putting her mug down on the coffee table and taking Garcia's from her grasp, as her friend began to cry again in earnest. JJ can't tell her. She wants to but she can't. She puts her arms around the other blonde and pulls her to her, feeling her own tears race from her eyes and down her face.

She knows Penelope; knows that when the initial grief has passed she will convince herself that there's a possibility that Emily's death is a rouse – she'll try and pick up a paper trail somewhere. JJ cries because she knows that for all Garcia's skill, she won't find anything. Her actions are anticipated and measures taken to prevent her ever knowing. JJ's lower lip wobbles as she pictures the moment when Garcia's newfound desperate hope is snuffed like a bumblebee under a heavy boot, when her searches come up empty. It has to be that way; it's the only way to keep them safe. It's the only way to keep Emily safe.

"**We understand death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one whom we love." - Madame de Stael**


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